Here’s to 2017

So now 2016 is at its end. I have to say I have very mixed feelings about this year; a lot of great people died, but then, so did a some awful people who left the world a worse place through their actions. I lost one of my grandparents back in January; it was like the herald to the avalanche of deaths that followed. The baby boomer generation’s starting to die out, and it may be more of a good than a bad thing, but death is always something somber, and it just seems like the cherry on top of a year where so many things went wrong.

And any hope towards the future being better is tentative, as it’s very likely things will go downhill fast as what’s left of the American government is ransacked by vultures. But I’m not really going to rant about politics; that’s not what this blog is for.

Good things about this year; I did publish my third novel, which is something I’m glad for, and now I’ve turned to other projects. I have a few different stories in various stages of development, some finished drafts in dire need of editing, some unfinished that I’m trying desperately to at least finish so I can step back and say “okay, the hard part of getting it down is done, now I just need to refine it into something good.” At least one story ties into the Realm Wraith series, and the rest are their own thing, some standalone, some part of potentially other series, once I get them better planned out.

So maybe 2017 will see another publication from me; we’ll see. At the very least I might try to publish some novellas. And I do plan on eventually putting out the first three Realm Wraith books as a collected edition, with added illustrations, maybe a bonus short story. I’ve noticed people seem to respond more to my art than my writing, so I’ve also been considering just adding a gallery to my main site, something where I can display some of my art pieces as well as go over the process in making them. I used to have a gallery blog where I did just that, but it’s been kind of defunct over the years, and I stopped using it when I changed my site to focus more on writing. So I’ll likely announce that if I get it set up.

In the meantime, I wish everybody reading this blog a happy 2017, and encourage everybody to stay hopeful for the future. There’s always going to be terrible things happening; what matters is how we deal with it, and that we don’t give in to despair.